The disclosure relates to a glass article used as the front cover or fascia of a device, such as an appliance; a seamless shaped glass fascia for an appliance, such as a glass fascia that wraps around at least two opposing edges of an appliance; a glass fascia that seamlessly incorporates a display or control panel; a thin lightweight glass fascia for appliances; and mounting arrangements for such fascias, including a mounting arrangement that facilitate quick fascia removal and replacement.
Numerous appliances, furniture, and electronic devices have used shaped covers to create unique and appealing designs. Handheld electronic devices in particular have employed seamless full front covers or fascias. Several problems stand out in attempting to apply the seamless cover or fascia designs commonly used in handheld devices to larger devices such as appliances. First, smaller product volumes. A handheld device may easily sell in millions of units, whereas a high volume “white good” may only sell in the hundreds of thousands of units. Thus, appliance manufacturers need a more cost-effective way to update models with new unique and appealing design elements, while relying on a common underlying platform. Second, quality of build. Consumers are beginning to expect relatively high mechanical tolerances in appliances. This creates a need for small gaps between device components in order to provide an appearance of a tight fit and a solid “feel”, which requires precision forming and alignment of components. Third, an ability to redecorate or change the fashion a device in order to provide a customized look is desirable. For example, when redecorating or remodeling a kitchen, it may be desirable to change the color or appearance of the kitchen appliances.
Flat glass has been increasingly used as decorative front panels for household appliances, such as decorative flat glass refrigerator front door panels. Glass panels provide an appealing glossy decorative look with an appearance of depth. Compared with plastic and stainless steel, glass has a number of other superior mechanical properties. Glass has a harder surface hardness than plastic and metal, such as stainless steel. Glass therefore has a higher scratch resistance than plastic and stainless steel. Glass also does not deform plastically as plastic and metal do. Glass therefore does not dent and leave a permanent plastic deformation scars and dents on its surface as stainless steel and plastic do. These properties make a glass fascia much more durable than plastic or even a metal fascias, thereby providing glass based appliance fascias a significant advantage over metal and plastic fascias in maintaining their appearance over a long service life.
To date, glass appliance fascias have been largely limited to flat, planar fascias. Typical techniques for forming complex shapes with glass, such as dropping a gob of molten or softened glass into a hot pressing apparatus, do not yield sufficient dimensional control to produce aesthetically pleasing designs capable of mass production. As a result, current state of the art designs for front covers or fascias for appliances having ornamental 3-D or shaped designs are typically limited to easily formed plastic or metal materials that can readily be formed into 3-D shapes through bending, extruding, molding, or the like.
FIG. 1 shows a representative Prior Art mounting technique for mounting an edge to edge decorative flat glass fascia 10 on an appliance. Edge-to-Edge glass designs have typically employed one or more of (1) a bezel, frame or rails 12 along the edges of the glass sheet/fascia, (2) bonding surfaces on which to affix the glass, or (3) floating designs which expose the underlying support mechanism or obscure the support structure with non-glass materials for supporting and mounting the glass fascia on the appliance. Moreover, soda lime glass is widely used for appliance fascias. To pass a variety of tests required in safety standards, especially mechanical impact tests, the sheet of soda lime glass is usually tempered and of 3.2 mm or more in thickness. Use of such thick sheets of glass makes this kind of glass fascia excessively heavy and makes it difficult to appealingly or smoothly integrate the glass panel into the appliances. Such a relatively thick full front soda lime glass fascia can add up to 25 lbs to the weight of an appliance, which makes it field-replacement and customer handling difficult.
There is a need in the art for a seamless glass cover/fascia for devices, such as appliances, that may be shaped into unique configurations or seamlessly incorporate a display or control panel. There is also a need in the art for thin light weight glass fascias for appliances and for mounting structures for mounting a thin glass fascia to an appliance or other device in a manner that inhibits fracturing of the thin glass fascia upon impact or loading.
Appliance manufacturers seek ways to replicate the design elements used in handheld devices and have begun to include touch screen displays control panes into their products (i.e. LCD+touch sensing system+software). However, the application requirements have typically put the touch screens either on the top surface of the appliance or behind plastic or relatively thick glass and an air gap, which often results in unsatisfactory appearance and performance. When a touch control panel is placed in the top or front surface of an appliance, then the appliance no longer has a seamless design. Whereas, when the touch control panes is placed behind plastic or thick glass with an air gap, then appearance of the control panel/display is aesthetically unpleasing due to the “tunnel effect” caused by the distance between the top surface and the display. Further, a plastic cover on the control panel is prone to scratching and may provide a cheap feel.
There is a need in the art for a thin lightweight, scratch resistant glass for use a decorative fascia—for appliances. There is also a need for the effective and economical seamless incorporation of a display or touch control panel into a glass fascia in a device such as an appliance.